There Are Lots of Jews in Hollywood. Let a Rabbi Explain Why

[Behind the Aegis]

Here’s something we’re not allowed to say about Ye/Kanye West’s recent series of antisemitic tirades: there’s a small grain of truth in them.

No, obviously not the conspiracy theories, Holocaust denial, or downright fascistic claims that people who don’t believe in Christ shouldn’t hold public office. Ye has clearly crossed over into either profound mental illness, or hatred, or both.

It should not be controversial to admit this. After all, Adam Sandler sang in 1994 that “so many Jews are in showbiz.” And, speaking here as someone who’s worked as a rabbi, queer activist, and journalist for the last twenty years, I don’t think it’s helpful for us to deny this reality, or refuse to discuss it. Doing so just shoves people’s questions underground, where they often ferment into doubts or misgivings, aided by the s***-filled fertilizer of online conspiracy mongers.

So I’m going to talk about it.

Not to defend Kanye, because that’s impossible. But because, again speaking as a rabbi here, I understand that reasonable, non-bigoted people might wonder about why there are so many Jews in the entertainment industry, and I want to answer that question. Especially because, as it turns out, the real story of why there are so many Jews in Hollywood is, itself, largely about America’s long history of racism and antisemitism.

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[Chainfire]

1. The explanation certainly makes sense.

You do what you gotta do to make a living!

[Solly Mack]

2. K&R

Last edited Sun Dec 11, 2022, 08:55 PM - Edit history (1)

People get really mad when they do their best to hold you down, but you still find a way to survive, to make it. Resentment builds up and the pernicious framing comes out. Think "uppity", "Jews control everything", "feminists emasculate men", "gay agenda". There are many, many other examples, unfortunately.

This is true across the broad spectrum of bigotry.

I don't play the who had it worse airing of historical atrocities and crushing bigotries - the history of abuses committed by dominant cultures has many victims. It's all heinous - the acts themselves and the excuses behind it. Sadly, the acts and the excuses continue.

There is a hierarchy to bigotry. One example being:

The wealthy white bigot doesn't think much of the poor white bigot, but the poor white bigot is still white.

LBJ said it best: “If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."

Another example would be:

One Christian denomination might think they are the only true Christians, but even those other so-called not true Chrisitan enough denominations are not Jewish or Muslim or Hindu, etc.. Southern evangelicals often call Catholics "papists", but they cheer the Catholics on the bench.

A common factor to make common cause regardless of their own prejudices against them.

MTG isn't pro Jewish or pro-Israel, she's pro end of times/evangelical Christian doctrine. Israel and Jewish people are just a means to an end and she's not alone in this.

Ignorance can be remedied, but only if a person is willing to hear what they are being told.

Same when someone tells you something is racist or sexist or homophobic or antisemitic, etc. If the person being educated doesn't want to hear it, they won't.

I'll shut up now.

[BMW2020RT]

4. 👍🏼

[halfulglas]

3. That definitely makes sense.

I knew about the prohibition against Jews owning land and engaging in certain professions and the reason they had shops, handling money and eventually engaging in international finance. And of course the reason their role in international finance became so large was because most wealth was local as most nations had rules against too much capital leaving their borders. Of course in every country in which Christianity was dominant they had periodic pogroms murdering the Jews and stealing their property (where hate for the "Jews who killed Christ" and avarice and jealousy of their wealth combined. Just like here, to watch anyone who looked like they had it better than they did produced envy and anger. The Jews in those communities had to have a way of getting at least some of their wealth out of the country if they had to suddenly flee because they would be destitute as refugees if they could not get at least some of their money out, hence the Jews often knew someone who knew someone who could secretly convert some of their money into forbidden foreign currency. (You know the old joke about why so few concert pianists were Jews - because it's hard to carry your instrument on your back when escaping.)

So there we have the beginning of conspiracy of super powerful Jews controlling all the money in the world. I have a huge question I wish those people would consider. If these "Jewish financiers" were so all powerful, why wouldn't they have halted the holocaust right after it was started? Do they really think that these powerful people would have allowed this to happen to their own people after the first camp was up and running? Millions!

Then we have the deniers that all those people were even killed. My first experience with this was in the summer of 1976 when coming out of a church service with my then husband and finding fliers on all the windshields of the cars. I was so shocked by the polemic that these fliers contained. So hateful against Jews and claiming most of the claims of the camps were lies and fabrications. Fake evidence that they existed. No gas chambers, no ovens. And of course the Jews were behind it because they wanted sympathy or some such thing. (Gee. just like an insurrection never happened here, just some demonstration.)

Anyway, my husband threw the flier away as ridiculous and would never amount to much, just some disgruntled angry people stirring up people. So, we have this happening again, spreading the hate to new groups who either haven't paid attention to the truth or reject it because they don't want to believe it or it's inconvenient for them to acknowledge it. Why do people even want to believe this? (Some people even say, "I don't want to believe this, but..." as if one fact really leads to another and makes them hate.

[Crowman2009]

5. Thomas Edison had a lot to do with it.

Mainly because he would hire street gangs to intimidate or sabotage rival cinemas and film companies. Hence the migration to California. Before Hollywood, Fort Lee, NJ was the movie capital of America. One could only imagine what the song "Hooray for Fort Lee" would sound like if Mr. Edison hadn't been such an megalomaniac.

[Archae]

6. There's a story about Henry Ford and the Jews in Hollywood...

Might be apocryphal, maybe not.

But Henry Ford started doing a series of articles in his Dear born Independent, slamming Jews in Hollywood, until a group of movie producers showed him some safety films of car accidents, and anyone could see the cars in those accident films were Fords.

The "Jews in Hollywood," series in the Independent stopped the same day.

[NJCher]

7. What would you do if you were excluded?

I'd be an entrepreneur, too. So without meaning to, exclusion actually created a workshop for capitalism.

Tough workshop, though. No safety net back then. Not that there's all that much of one now, for entrepreneurs, anyway. For employed people, yes.

Anyway, I wanted to mention that the author of this article is Jay Michaelson, who is also an authority on meditation, which I prefer to call focus exercise. I haven't tried his app, but I am listening to his podcast called "Ten Percent Happier" on Spotify (also elsewhere, usual podcast outlets).



He's an amazingly talented, gifted individual. For some of his other contributions, see his website at:

https://www.jaymichaelson.net

He also wrote an article on how trump's judicial appointments twist and corrupt the process.

[bronxiteforever]

8. Kick & recommend great article!